Dominic Wring is Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies at
Loughborough University
The Media and Politics: the Hutton Inquiry, Public Relations State
and crisis at the BBC.
Abstract: 2004 began with the culmination of an inquiry by Lord Hutton into the
circumstances leading up to the death of the Ministry of Defence scientist David
Kelly. Hutton formally cleared the government of blame and criticised the BBC for
its role in the affair but the subsequent debate ensured Tony Blair’s involvement in
the controversy and the wider issue of Iraq remained firmly on the agenda. Blair’s
apparent vindication by Hutton was dismissed as one-sided by a formidable coalition
of agenda-setting newspapers whose vigorous defence of the BBC together with
further criticisms raised by the Corporation’s former Director General Greg Dyke
maintained the pressure on government. The crisis highlighted the limitations of the
so-called Public Relations State, subsequent reforms of which have done little to
counter the perception that there is a growing crisis of public trust in the Prime
Minister and his government.
Labour inherited the machinery of the modern ‘Public Relations State’ from the
Thatcher government.1 Prior to then, and despite their relatively brief spells in office,
Labour prime ministers did oversee some important innovations in this sphere:
MacDonald employed a press secretary, Attlee supervised the introduction of the
Central Office of Information and Wilson was arguably the first incumbent to
understand the importance of the television soundbite.2 These developments attracted
journalistic commentaries but none of the coverage in is comparable to that devoted to
the modern Labour government’s high self-conscious communications strategy. But
arguably this approach and the attention given it is not necessarily a demonstration of
strength in that it underlines the conditionality of media support for Tony Blair when
compared with Margaret Thatcher. The former never required or depended upon
press officers or their more clandestine spin-doctor variants to the same degree
because the proprietors of most agenda setting national newspapers were almost
unquestioning in their support for her agenda. Consequently rather than devoting
resources to soliciting and managing ‘free’ coverage from the news media, the
Thatcher governments were able to concentrate more of their efforts on ‘controlled’
communications like the advertising campaigns they funded to publicise the major
privatisation programmes.
Thatcher’s departure from office brought into public the simmering Conservative
divisions, principally over European integration, and strained the party’s relationship
with the ‘Tory press’. Soon only the staunchly loyal Express was the only reliable
supporter as John Major found himself in a precarious situation without a clear
parliamentary majority or compliant news media. The Tory press gradually became
the Tony press but, as the latter term suggests, this was a more conditional, less
compelling allegiance. The Sun, one of Blair’s new allies, demonstrated this when it
criticised the by now prime minister for being the ‘Most Dangerous Man in Europe’
because of his allegedly integrationist tendencies. And this in turn helps to explain
why the Labour government has devoted so much resource, expertise and effort to
communicating its message through the media.
Thatcher’s press secretary Bernard Ingham has criticised the Labour government in
seeking to distinguish his own role from that of successor Alastair Campbell but in
doing so he fails to acknowledge that degree to which the print journalists he worked
with were employed by close political allies of Prime Minister Thatcher. There has,
nonetheless, been a qualitative as well as quantitative change in the work of what
Campbell helped to relaunch as the Government Information and Communication
Service (GICS). Allied to this an important spin-doctoring function was increasing
being discharged by the growing numbers of Departmental Special Advisers working
throughout Whitehall. Infamously it was one of these, Jo Moore, who shortly after
news of the tragedy suggested September 11th 2001 would be a ‘good day to bury bad
news’. The incident underlined the government’s determined, even ruthless,
commitment to media management and, by his failure to orchestrate the immediate
removal of Moore, Blair’s own devotion to this network of spin-doctors. The episode
also helps to clarify why the present government has gained and retained a reputation
for media manipulation and how this served to undermine its credibility during the
most serious crisis in media-government relations since Labour’s election in 1997.
In successive military engagements involving British forces, the role of the country’s
media has been a site of controversy and source of debate. The BBC, in particular,
has been subjected to particular scrutiny because of its perceived symbolic and
journalistic importance as the supposed ‘voice of the nation’. In each of the last three
major conflicts, a loyal government backbencher has managed to convey their
leadership’s anger towards the Corporation by launching a highly emotive attack on
the broadcaster for its alleged duplicity and/or lack of patriotism. During the
Falklands crisis, MP John Page spoke of BBC Newsnight providing questionable if
not downright ‘treasonable’ coverage. Similarly in the Gulf crisis of 1990-1 David
Tredinnick endorsed a constituent who had written to him to denounce the ‘Baghdad
Broadcasting Corporation’. In one of the subsequent debates over the more recent
Iraq invasion it was the turn of a Labour politician, Sion Simon, to attack and label the
BBC as the ‘enemy within’, a term with special resonance for the labour movement
because it was previously used by Margaret Thatcher to describe the striking miners
in the 1980s. Former journalist Simon’s further call for the BBC to be privatised was
however less in line with party policy and more in keeping with the views of his
former employers, the notoriously anti-NUM News of the World. Furthermore the
suggestion relied on a belief that the Corporation’s coverage had been markedly
hostile towards the government is disputed by a Cardiff University School of
Journalism study which suggests BBC reporting was more favourable to official
government sources than its rivals. Nonetheless the importance of Simon’s comments
was to reveal the depth of animosity on the part of some within the Labour hierarchy
towards the BBC following the publication in late January 2004 of the Hutton Inquiry
into the circumstances surrounding the death of Ministry of Defence scientific adviser
David Kelly.3
The Hutton Inquiry
Lord Brian Hutton was appointed by Tony Blair to investigate the background to
Kelly’s apparent suicide and the role of government and the BBC in his public
exposure during summer 2003 when it was revealed he had been the alleged source
for Radio 4 Today defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan’s claim that senior people
within Downing Street had ‘sexed up’ the crucial dossier outlining the evidence for
supporting the invasion of Iraq. This highly controversial suggestion brought senior
BBC management into direct conflict with Alastair Campbell and the ensuing debate
over the veracity of the report became a personal tragedy when David Kelly was
named, subjected to considerable public scrutiny and then found dead soon after. The
news emerged hours after the Prime Minister had been awarded the rare honour of
addressing the US Congress. Kelly’s death refocused media attention away from the
government’s agenda and an anxious Blair hastily announced Hutton would supervise
an inquiry into the tragedy. The subsequent report formally vindicated the
government but, due to its one-sided nature, only served to deepen rather than close
the controversy.
An important aspect of Lord Hutton’s inquiry focused on the role and practices of
journalism and in his conclusions the judge formed the view that: ‘communication by
the media on matters of public interest and importance is a vital part of life in a
democratic society (but is) subject to the qualification that false accusations of fact
impugning the integrity of others, including politicians, should not be made by the
media’ before clearing the government of any ‘underhand or dishonourable or
duplicitous conduct’ in relation to the identification of Kelly as the source for
Gilligan’s allegations. Hutton also believed Downing Street had acted in good faith,
particularly over the insertion of the dossier’s highly contentious claim that the Iraqi
regime possessed weapons of mass destruction and that it was able and potentially
willing to deploy these within 45 minutes. The latter and rather alarming figure had
been widely reproduced throughout the media and was perceived to have strengthened
the case for the subsequent military intervention.
The publication of Hutton’s findings may have exonerated the government but the
report provoked a furious and sustained counterattack led by a formidable alliance of
national newspapers who were normally thought of as the BBC’s rivals (if not foes)
but who in this case mounted a vigorous defence of the Corporation. Whereas there
had been a tendency among journalists to neglect the evidence and accept the less
critical conclusions of the Franks report into events leading up to the Falklands crisis
twenty years before, the reverse was the case with this inquiry. This demonstrated the
vulnerability and limitations of the public relations state machinery Blair and
Campbell had expended so much effort on reforming. Some journalists now appeared
to prepare to ask questions that deviated from the normal Westminster consensus and
even right-wing papers like the Express and Mail expressed unease over the
government’s adherence to a policy formulated in Washington by the so-called neo-
conservatives within the US administration.
It was perhaps ironic that a document so preoccupied journalistic custom and practice
should itself be apparently spun through the kind of leak that had long characterised
the news management strategies of the Blair government. Hutton was angered by the
disclosure of his findings to Trevor Kavanagh of the Sun on the eve of his report’s
publication (28th January 2004). Arguably though the judge’s reaction underlined the
journalistic criticism of him that he was naïve about the workings of the media and
was not in a strong position to offer an informed commentary on this particular brief.
The front-page story in the Sun accurately forecasted the judge’s findings apart from
one important detail relating to Campbell’s assistant press officer Tom Kelly. He had
earned the rare and dubious distinction of being named by Paul Waugh of the
Independent (6th August 2003) as the source for an unflattering portrayal of David
Kelly (no relation) as a ‘Walter Mitty’ character shortly before the scientist’s death.
Kavanagh predicted the spin-doctor’s censuring by Hutton but in the event no such
criticism was forthcoming and he remained in post to again find favour and
preferment under Campbell’s successors when major changes to the GICS were
announced two months after Hutton.
Tom Kelly’s survival demonstrated how favourable Hutton’s report was to the
government and his prominent appearance in the Sun story underlined the personality
driven nature of the much contemporary political reporting. As BBC political editor
Andrew Marr observed current affairs reporting is increasingly influenced by a
celebrity style journalism that tends to concentrate on the human drama of who is ‘up’
and who is ‘down’ to the exclusion of context and detail.4 Politicians have
encouraged this development through their own efforts at self-promotion and their co-
opting of the famous; Blair’s sanctioning of popstar Bono’s keynote address to the
2004 Labour Conference offers a prime example of this trend. Consequently it is
possible to draw a parallel between the highly personalised coverage of the Hutton
Inquiry outcome and that afforded ITV programme I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of
Here, the story that dominated popular media culture at that time. Both stories
revolved around the reporting of the interplay between ten to a dozen actors, some of
whose fortunes greatly fluctuated over a short period of time. An editorial in the
Guardian even drew the two genres together when it suggested Blair might appear in
his own version of the television format following another of his broadcast encounters
with a group of voters over student top-fees. But it was the same paper’s columnist
Madeleine Bunting who had previously made the more telling observation that Blair’s
emotionalised discourse had initially worked in his first term but now had the
potential to rebound against him (Guardian, 17th March 2003). From this perspective
the prime minister had arguably made himself more vulnerable to criticism from an
aggrieved Kelly family but in the event their response to Hutton’s findings was
understandably subdued. The media reaction was anything but and raised once again
the issue of whether Blair was a leader the public could trust.
Whitewash over Westminster? Media reactions to Hutton and the crisis at the BBC.
The BBC’s reporting of the Hutton Inquiry’s conclusion was, as it is legally required,
offered a considered and coherent summary of the main findings. But ultimately its
reporters, and particularly those belonging to the News 24 channel, were literally left
on the sidelines as Corporation staff staged a walkout on hearing that Director
General Greg Dyke had followed Chairman Gavyn Davies earlier decision to resign in
light of the judge’s criticism of the Corporation’s management. The two departures
together with their employees’ spontaneous demonstration, refocused attention on the
government, none of whose ministers had resigned despite the recognised
shortcomings in its own conduct over Iraq. The BBC staff response was less
favourable to what many believed was the unnecessary public apology offered to
Downing Street by Davies’ temporary replacement, Deputy Chairman Richard Ryder.
Of the other main broadcasters, Channel 4 News’ Jon Snow’s performance was
particularly memorable, reminiscent as it was of his combative ITN predecessors
Robin Day and Ludovic Kennedy. The tenor of much of this coverage demonstrated
the degree to which Davies’ and Dyke’s actions succeeded in refocusing attention on
Blair, Campbell, intelligence officer John Scarlett and Defence minister Geoff Hoon’s
motives and activities.
It was, as ever with the British media, the newspapers that were able to offer more
forthright analysis because of their relative freedom from the statutory regulations
imposed on broadcast content. The press reaction underlined the more complex
nature of media alignments compared with the more obviously pro-government bias
of twenty years before. As was noted above journalists then had largely accepted the
findings and neglected the more critical evidence presented by the Franks report into
the events leading up to the Falklands crisis of 1982. The reverse was the case with
Hutton although there was a parallel between the two reports’ receptions in that it was
the more left inclined newspapers that led the attacks on the government. The
Independent had been particularly critical of the Iraq invasion and reported Hutton’s
findings in a similar manner, providing one of the most memorable covers of the year
with its front page largely empty save for the headline ‘Whitewash’ (29th January
2004). The Guardian was similarly dismissive of the government’s position whilst
the Mirror was scathing about Hutton and defended the thrust of Gilligan’s story. In a
rare show of unity editorials in the right-wing Mail and Express closely resembled
each other and their liberal rivals. The Mail even reproduced, almost verbatim, the
evidence used by the Mirror to challenge Hutton’s judgements. Similarly the Express
reproduced the ‘Whitewash’ front page headline and complained that the report was
unlikely to diminish the suffering of the grieving Kelly family.
The Express may have found common cause with its nominal rivals but it did not with
its fellow Richard Desmond owned paper, the Daily Star, which blamed the crisis on
BBC ‘stupidity’. Similar sentiments were reproduced in a more portentous Telegraph
commentary that departed from the case to launch a somewhat irrelevant attack on the
‘market share obsessed’ Corporation’s ‘soft left’. The Times reiterated this point in a
less circumlocutory manner and condemned the BBC editors’ ‘defective systems’.
Fellow News International title, the Sun, was characteristically blunt in attacking the
‘shamed’ BBC and dutifully acted as the authentic voice of proprietor Rupert
Murdoch in his ongoing campaign against license funded broadcasting in Britain.
Murdoch’s leading media critics responded by publicising a survey finding comparing
the 92% of the public who expressed trust in the Corporation with the 11% who said
the same of the Sun. It is perhaps instructive that Blair found himself increasing
dependent on the latter as a source of media support and more by default than choice.
News Internationals’ anti-BBC agenda was on further display the following weekend
in Hutton related editorials. The News of the World departed from its populist format
to pursue a relatively esoteric argument for a reform of an ‘arrogant feather bedded
corporation’ that would require it to make 10% of revenues available ‘to subsidise
other channels’ (1st February 2004). Presumably the latter would include the
Murdoch run Sky channels that were restricted from broadcasting their own case for
this kind of subsidy. Helpfully News International’s other newspaper, the Sunday
Times, continued the lobbying by complaining of the BBC ‘smothering
entrepreneurial activity’.
The other Sundays tended to follow their daily sisters’ editorial line if they
commented at all. The Independent on Sunday dismissed Hutton as ‘naïve’ whilst the
Mail on Sunday ridiculed the judge’s ‘ludicrously one-sided’ report. Other papers left
the matter for contributors to comment on. Sunday Express political editor Julia
Hartley-Brewer set out the evidence to argue that Gilligan had been ‘95% right’
whereas occasional BBC presenter Eamonn Holmes of The People used a minor part
of his column to state his belief that the Corporation was needed ‘more than ever’.
Richard Stott, political columnist on Trinity Media’s other weekly, the Sunday
Mirror, took a line that dissented from most of his colleagues in criticising Greg Dyke
for fomenting the crisis and his own downfall. Likewise the Guardian Media Group’s
Sunday, the Observer, which had been markedly more sympathetic to the government
over Iraq than its daily sister paper, laid most of the blame on the apparent failure of
the BBC governors to discharge their regulatory duties.
The former Director General eventually provided a lengthy response to Hutton, the
government and his critics in his own memoirs and a subsequent Channel 4 broadcast
‘Betrayed by New Labour’.5 Dyke, one of a select group of associates who had
funded Blair’s 1994 Labour leadership campaign, accused the Prime Minister of
duplicitous behaviour for having failed to honour an apparent promise to him that he
would not support calls for BBC resignations at the end of the Inquiry. Dyke was
particularly incensed at the by now freelance Alastair Campbell’s highly public and
bitter attack on him following the publication of Hutton’s report and viewed this as
emblematic of the way Blair had failed to control his Director of Communications in
Downing Street.
The unprecedented departure of both the Chairman and Director General left two
vacancies that were temporarily filled by deputy post-holders Richard Ryder and
Mark Byford. Neither replacement endeared themselves to their staff given what was
felt to have been their overly conciliatory response to the government in the aftermath
of the Hutton report. The vacuum within the BBC was however filled with the
appointment of Michael Grade as Chairman and Mark Thompson as Director General.
Both were veterans of the BBC with experience of working for Channel 4 and thus
well placed to begin planning their strategy of ensuring the Corporation’s Royal
Charter was renewed in 2006. To this end Thompson’s first major act was to
announce changes that amounted to 2,900 job losses and the relocation of selected
London based departments to new premises in Manchester. The measures were
designed to save an estimated £320 million, approximately 15% of the total budget.
The announcement came at the end of a year that had seen several major studies into
various aspects of the BBC structures and provision including those led by experts
such as academic Patrick Barwise, policy adviser David Elstein and economist Tim
Gardam.
One of the most potentially influential if not feared contributors to the debate over the
future of public service broadcasting was the regulatory authority Ofcom now
operating in its first full year of existence. Despite the BBC’s difficulties, the
possibility or desirability of the new organisation replacing the Corporation’s board of
governors was not a major topic of discussion although Ben Pimlott, in one of his last
published commentaries, was fearful of Ofcom’s possible encroachment.6 Such a
concern was motivated by the energetic start made by Ofcom and its success in setting
the agenda in a way predecessors such as the ITC, Radio Authority and Broadcasting
Standards Commission had not. In a major review of the media and communications
market and structures, the report identified a significant increase in the uptake of non-
terrestrial media by British households. The trend encouraged Ofcom executive and
former Downing Street aide Ed Richards to argue for a new public service
broadcasting (PSB) venture based on a digital platform. Allied to this other proposals
began to emerge suggesting ITV and Channel 4 be increasingly released from their
less commercially lucrative PSB requirements, notably the commitment to regional
programming. Even more radical was the contention that satellite based providers
such as Sky News might at some stage in the future be freed from the strict and
longstanding rules requiring broadcast current affairs providers to offer balanced and
impartial coverage and thereby raising the possibility that Sky might emulate its more
populist and determinedly ideological American sister network Fox.
Renegotiating the Public Relations State.
The structures and organisation of Downing Street’s ‘spin’ operation periodically
attracted the kind of media attention normally reserved for the various machinations
over the future of the BBC. The former were, however, relegated far behind the latter
when the conclusion to an inquiry headed by Bob Phillis into the workings
Government Communication and Information Service (GICS) coincided with that of
Lord Hutton. Like Hutton, Phillis, Chief Executive of the Guardian Media Group,
had been appointed by Downing Street to convene a committee based inquiry into the
GICS over the course of 2003. The investigation, the first major review of the service
since the Mountfield report at the beginning of Labour’s first term, had been
commissioned because of a growing perception that there was an increasing
breakdown in trust between politicians, journalists and the public. The Phillis
committee’s final report was understandably neglected given the furore following the
publication of Lord Hutton’s findings. Nevertheless Blair’s personal endorsement of
the review leant influence and credibility to its proposals, most notably the call for an
overhaul in the existing structures of the GICS to counter the perceived lack of co-
ordination between Whitehall departments and beyond.
The Phillis report argued for a new, more streamlined system headed by a senior
permanent secretary for communications who would be aided by a fellow civil servant
as well as a political appointee. In March 2004 Howell James, a former aide to John
Major, was duly confirmed in the senior role. Given the high profile of Bernard
Ingham and Alastair Campbell, it was perhaps inevitable James’ appointment to a
sensitive new position would attract media attention and journalists did begin
commenting on the official’s friendship with Peter Mandelson, another controversial
former exponent of government communications.7 The permanent secretary was
aided by existing No.10 Downing St press officer Tom Kelly, a notable survivor
whose demise had been predicted before the Hutton Inquiry, and political appointee
David Hill who was also an existing member of Blair’s staff. Hill had originally
replaced Campbell following the latter’s departure the previous year and had proved
to be a consummate insider during his three decades working in politics, most of it in
the employ of Labour politicians. If judged by their subsequent, relatively
anonymous public profile the ‘new’ team succeeded in focusing media attention away
from the minutiae of their work in a way the more obviously combative Campbell had
not.
The implementation of the Phillis’ review recommendations was swift although the
report did attract criticism, particularly from beyond Westminster. Broadcaster and
academic Ivor Gaber questioned the validity of the report’s assertion that
communication was now as vital a part of government as public service delivery and
policy formulation.8 Gaber also argued the reforms were a retrograde step because
they amounted to a further concentration of power within an already highly
centralised government information system. In a related criticism Jeremy Dear,
leader of the National Union of Journalists, suggested the changes marked the
privatisation of the GICS’s functions and that the main beneficiaries of this would be
those corporate public relations consultants fortunate enough to gain a highly
lucrative government contract. Phillis also drew criticism from more conservative
opinion-formers such as John Major’s former Press Secretary Chris Meyer who, as
chairman of the Press Complaints’ Commission, was dismissive of the report’s call
for more public, televised briefings in place of the informal interactions between
journalists and politicians under the guise of the secretive, off the record lobby
system. Meyer believed the proposal impractical and offered a defence for what he
called the ‘healthy scepticism’ that characterised political reporting in Britain.
Some of the most telling criticisms of the government communication service came
several months after some of the Phillis report recommendations had been
implemented. More surprisingly the observations were made by some of the most
senior officials working within the system and thereby demonstrated the difficulties in
changing working cultures as opposed to just structures. At a meeting involving
heads of communication working for the various ministries, the Department of
Health’s Sian Jarvis reportedly said that Downing Street was still preoccupied with
presentational matters to the detriment of the substance and complained that: ‘they
are asking for announcements before we have a policy’ (Sunday Times, 26th July
2004). Jarvis further suggested this was a key reason why her office preferred to use
doctors rather than ministers to make announcements on matter involving issues of
public trust. Similarly Siobhan Kelly from the Department of Culture Media and
Sport reiterated former spin-doctor Jo Moore’s infamous words to support her
contention that the government was still seeking to ‘bury bad news’ and gave the
example of how a survey demonstrating widespread support for the BBC post-Hutton
had been hidden in a relatively obscure part of a much larger report issued to
journalists. Besides their content was particular notable about the criticisms was that
they came from officials who had joined the government since it was first elected in
1997 and who were perceived to have been more sympathetic to its aims and
procedures than their predecessors.
Communication and the nature of decision-making within the highest levels of
government formed a central feature of the officially sanctioned investigation headed
by former Cabinet Secretary Robin Butler into the events leading up to the invasion of
Iraq. During this review Blair’s motives and conduct were once again examined,
debated and evaluated by key protagonists and media alike. Butler concluded by
criticising the government’s lack of formal procedures and structures, a deficit he
believed had contributed to the diminution and neglect of the Cabinet, its committees
and the senior civil servants who had succeeded him. The report was also critical of
the evidence in the dossier collated by future head of MI6 John Scarlett that had been
used to justify the government’s support for the invasion.
The coverage of Butler in the print media was in many ways a replay of the papers’
reactions to Hutton. The Sun emphasised the limited nature of the report’s criticisms
and reiterated what it believed were the benefits to have emerged from the conflict.
The Telegraph took a similar view although it was critical of the ‘cavalier attitude to
government’ of Blair and his close colleagues identified in Butler’s findings. The
more unremitting criticism of Downing Street came from those who had earlier
dismissed the Hutton report and now accepted the broad thrust of the Butler report if
not his cautious, judicial pronouncements. The Mirror (16th July 2004) resurrected
Andrew Gilligan’s contentious description, ‘Over-sexed’, to headline a front-page
story ridiculing the notorious 45-minute claim about the possible deployment of
weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein’s regime. Butler had been critical
of this figure but failed to identify and blame a culprit. Writing in one of his last
articles (The Observer, 18th July 2004), veteran commentator Anthony Sampson was
less reticent to apportion guilt and argued the evidence strongly implicated Alastair
Campbell. Sampson believed the unorthodox Special Order in Council that had
empowered Campbell to personally direct civil servants had been crucial in enabling
him to use his tabloid honed instincts to firm up the less than convincing intelligence
and influence the deliberations of John Scarlett, the official ultimately responsible for
the dossier.
News from Elsewhere: international events and the domestic news agenda.
Blair’s oft-stated desire to move on from Iraq following the various reports and
inquiries that formally cleared his government of wrongdoing was ignored by many
media commentators because the investigations were viewed as partial to Downing
Street. More fundamentally the news agenda was driven by the seriousness of the
ongoing crisis and the associated revelations that began to emerge as a result of the
military intervention. The collapse of the trial against Katherine Gun was particularly
embarrassing. Gun, a GCHQ intelligence official, had earlier leaked details of the
government’s apparent endorsement of questionable bugging operations against
various international figures during the critical debate prior to the invasion of Iraq.
The government also experienced a setback when 52 former diplomats with
experience of the Middle East took the unusual step of publishing a letter critical of
Downing Street’s conduct of foreign policy. Blair’s moral case for war was further
compromised by the widespread publication of photographs of American personnel
mistreating Arab detainees in Abu Ghraib, one of the Ba’athist regime’s most
notorious prisons. The imagery provoked a powerful reaction from erstwhile
proponents of the invasion whose support had been motivated by human rights
concerns. Initially there was a similar response when the avowedly anti-war Mirror
published images purporting to show British soldiers abusing Iraqi captives but when
the photos were subsequently shown to have been faked the editor Piers Morgan was
dismissed.
The loss of Morgan, one of the invasion’s fiercest media opponents, did little to stem
the attacks on a government that had lost none of its ministers despite the mounting
and varied criticisms of their foreign policy. The tragedy of the crisis was continually
demonstrated by the appalling Iraqi casualties that medical journal the Lancet
estimated to have rise to 100,000 during the year. The media coverage of these cases
was patchy and focused on the most violent theatres of conflict such as Falluja. The
human consequences of the conflict were only really comprehensively reported by
mainstream news journalists when several western civilians including the engineer
Ken Bigley and British born aid worker Margaret Hassan were abducted and killed by
militant groups. The Bigley family’s pro-active media strategy helped to ensure the
story remained in the headlines and provided a dramatic reminder, if any were
needed, of the unfolding crisis and power vacuum within Iraq. Video footage of some
of the captives’ beheadings posted on-line underlined the potential power of the
Internet as a medium.
The paucity of the intelligence that had supported the Coalition leaders’ original
claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction led to considerable debate in the
international media and, in a US presidential election year, an unprecedented number
of major documentaries by radical film-makers. Several of these attacked George W.
Bush and implicated Blair for his allegedly supine support of the Republicans’ agenda
for the Middle East and elsewhere. The most high profile of these films, Fahrenheit
911, came from leading liberal left director Michael Moore and criticised the failure
of mainstream news organisations to question the logic and morality of the
administration’s foreign policy. The film had most impact within the United States
but gained audiences in Britain and other countries where there was a heightened
citizen interest in the outcome of the presidential election. The Guardian even
encouraged readers to try and influence the result by sending letters to voters living in
the highly Ohio marginal constituency of Clark county. Most of those who wrote did
so on behalf of Democratic challenger John Kerry although their most discernible
impact was to solicit antagonistic replies from some of the more pro-Bush residents.
The perceived failings of mainstream media reporting of international affairs was the
subject of a major Glasgow University Media Group study into the coverage of the
Middle East situation.9 The research suggested British viewers were ill served by
journalistic accounts that failed to take proper account of the historical context to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Reviewing the book former BBC Middle Eastern
correspondent Tim Llewellyn (The Observer 20th June 2004), suggested the state was
more resourced and adept at defending its position, a point borne out when an Israeli
minister attacked Llewellyn’s successor Orla Guerin for her unflattering portrait of
the security authorities’ handling of a teenage suicide bomber. Elsewhere another
aspect of the BBC’s output, the thought provoking BBC2 documentary series The
Power of Nightmares, could have been interpreted as a response to the Glasgow
group’s criticism about the lack of historical context on television. In the programmes
director Adam Curtis revisited a thesis popularised by journalists like Jason Burke to
question whether the terrorist network al-Quaeda and thus the justification for the
‘war on terror’ actually existed.
Politics and ‘Anti-politics’.
The Brown versus Blair saga continued to generate headlines, speculation and
features throughout the year and re-emphasised the importance of spin as both a
concept and practice. The controversy attracted renewed interest in May following
Gordon Brown’s meeting with John Prescott at the Loch Fyne restaurant in Scotland.
Speculation increased following a convivial interview between Melvyn Bragg and
Alistair Stewart of the ITV News Channel during which the peer admitted his friend
Tony Blair had recently contemplated resigning. Further news about his heart
problems and the purchase of a multi-million pound family home led Blair to take the
highly unusual step of confirming that, if re-elected, his third term would be his last.
The realisation that the Prime Minister’s career was entering its final phase prompted
more journalistic speculation and this duly intensified following the resignation of
Work and Pensions Secretary Andrew Smith. Smith had allegedly been the subject of
what one journalist described as ‘poisonous’ off the record briefings and these had
encouraged him to quit before being sacked.
Coverage of the reshuffle following Smith’s resignation re-ignited the debate over the
rivalry between Blair and Brown or, more precisely, their respective spin-doctoring
‘camps’. There was speculation Party Chairman Ian McCartney would be removed in
favour of Blair ally and Cabinet returnee Alan Milburn. In the event Milburn was
appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster with a brief to co-ordinate election
preparations but this did little to dispel the media fuelled perception that the Prime
Minister was positioning him as an alternative successor to Brown. These changes
and the nature of Smith’s departure gave credence to Clare Short’s accusation that the
Blair ‘court’ was a ‘nasty place’ preoccupied with ‘manipulating the media’
(Guardian 9th September 2004).10 The government’s presentational difficulties over
the reshuffle were soon further compounded by the resignation of Home Secretary
David Blunkett following revelations that he had abused his position to help a now
estranged partner. Lurid stories of the affair with Spectator magazine publisher
Kimberley Quinn diluted the impact of both the Chancellor’s Budget statement and a
Queen’s Speech that had been designed to emphasise the importance of security in
advance of a widely expected May general election.
Aside from the various media driven stories about personalities and rivalries in
government, informed journalists recognised the very real tensions that were
emerging over policy and which were exposed through Blair’s sanctioning of a
referendum on the proposed European Constitution without Cabinet approval. The
decision was widely interpreted as a setback for the integrationist cause because of the
widely perceived public scepticism towards such matters. EU Commissioner Chris
Patten criticised Blair, believing him to be motivated by a desire to appease the anti-
EU press, particularly those agenda-setting titles owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News
International company (Observer 25th April 2004). Blair’s maintenance of these
newspapers’ support over this and other issues made it all the more difficult for
Michael Howard in his attempt to cultivate Rupert Murdoch when the two met for
discussions early on in the year. The new Conservative leader had more success in
winning over the Daily Express, a paper that was once one of his party’s staunchest
allies. Its front-page declaration that ‘Enough is Enough’ was followed up with
analysis of key issues and an explanation for its abandonment of Labour for the
Tories. The impact of the news was, however, diminished by the title’s declining
reputation, influence and readership. By contrast media commentators appeared more
interested in the announcement by the rare pop music industry endorsement of the
Conservatives by the band Busted.
The lack of a more enthusiastic media response to the Conservatives under new leader
Michael Howard encouraged party strategists to take their message to the public in
more direct ways. Those directing the campaigning included former Orange
telecommunications marketing executive Will Harris and, following his recent
success in the Australian elections, Lynton Crosby, an adviser to the country’s Prime
Minister John Howard. As part of a major organisational review the Conservatives
also moved from their established Smith Square headquarters to a new state of the art
premises in Westminster’s Victoria Street. From there strategists supervised various
initiatives including an advertising campaign aimed at a public sector workforce
perceived to be increasingly disaffected with government reforms. The party also
launched an ambitious telephone canvassing operation staffed by the kind of person
the Conservatives thought would be able to best empathise and communicate with the
public. Michael Howard attempted to demonstrate this quality by appearing on the
less formal programmes such as ITV daytime show This Morning along with his wife
Sandra. Blair as well as some of Howard’s Conservative predecessors had long
recognised agreeing to such interviews were an excellent way of reaching the kind of
viewers who were not greatly interested in formal politics but who nevertheless might
vote.
Despite their best efforts the Conservatives’ support were routinely placed behind
Labour in successive public opinion polls. Perhaps worse still the Tories faced a
sustained challenge for second or even third place in the Hartlepool, Leicester South
and Birmingham Hodge Hill by-elections. The party came nowhere near winning any
of these seats and attempts to promote itself as the credible opposition to Labour were
undermined by the Liberal Democrats’ increasing momentum as well as the
remarkable upsurge in support for the United Kingdom Independence Party. UKIP’s
populist campaigns against the EU and immigration were given renewed impetus by
the presence of ex-Labour MP Robert Kilroy-Silk, the former talk-show host who had
recently been sacked by the BBC for making controversial remarks about Arab states
in his Sunday Express column. The minor party maintained scored notable gains in
both votes and seats at the European parliamentary elections and Kilroy-Silk became
an MEP having personally attracted considerable media attention through his own
notoriety and the co-opting of celebrity supporters such as actor Joan Collins.
UKIP was not a new organisation but the significant boost in support for it underlined
some commentators’ belief that a wider and growing anti-politics sentiment was
growing. This view appeared to gain endorsement with the media led condemnation
of MPs following the most comprehensive publication of their expense costs to date.
Allied to this was a perception that public cynicism with the democratic process had
been a factor in the heavier than expected vote against the proposed North East
Assembly in a referendum involving nearly half of the region’s population. In
addition to this it was noteworthy how much coverage sections of the media afforded
single issue groups such as the Countryside Alliance and Fathers4Justice who claimed
to be most alienated, particularly when the more extreme elements associated with
these movements invaded the chamber of the House of Commons and stopped
parliamentary proceedings.
The apparent rise in public hostility towards government was one of the reasons John
Lloyd was prompted to write What the Media are Doing to Our Politics.11 The
veteran commentator and Financial Times journalist took the unusual step of
supporting criticisms normally associated with those working outside of his own
industry and attacked a news culture that he believed was fostering a belief that to be
effective, interviewers should assume ‘why is this lying bastard lying to me?’ when
they encountered a politician. In a Reuters lecture Lloyd continued his critique and
suggested the media were now operating in a ‘parallel universe’. The book was
particularly critical of the quality of news journalism offered by opinion forming
programmes such as BBC Radio 4’s Today and dismissive of contributor Andrew
Gilligan’s working practices and assertion that the government had ‘sexed-up’ the
evidence for going to war. Predictably the defence of political journalism and the
BBC was forthcoming in the keynote television industry MacTaggart lecture
delivered by John Humphrys, the broadcaster who had originally elicited Gilligan’s
contentious report.
One of Blair’s staunchest supporters, John Lloyd also joined other influential
commentators such as Bob Phillis and former Downing Street aides Geoff Mulgan
and Tim Allan in suggesting democratic politics was being ill served by a media that
increasingly appeared unable to distinguish between news from comment. It was
perhaps ironic that one of the most compelling demonstrations of these pro-
government observers’ case involved the libel trial between the staunchly anti-war ex-
Labour MP George Galloway and Daily Telegraph. Galloway successfully sued and
won £150,000 damages following earlier reports in the paper that he may have
personally profited from involvement in charitable works throughout the Middle East.
Former editor Roy Greenslade (Guardian 6th December 2004) contended the outcome
had depended on the journalist’s blurring of news and comment. It was a deficiency
associated with this paper that others including a former Telegraph foreign
correspondent had partly blamed on the imposing style of former proprietor Conrad
Black, the spectacular demise of whom attracted considerable media attention during
the year.
1
D.Deacon and P.Golding, Taxation without Representation, John Libbey 1994.
2
C. Seymour-Ure, Prime Ministers and the Media, Blackwells, 2003
3
J. Lewis, Biased Broadcasting Corporation, Guardian, July 4, 2003. For more on Hutton see J.
Stanyer, Politics and the Media: A Crisis of Trust?, Parliamentary Affairs, March-April 2004
4
A. Marr, lecture to the ‘Can’t Vote, Won’t Vote’ conference, UK Political Studies Association
Media and Politics Group conference, Goldsmiths College, November 2003.
5
G. Dyke, Inside Story, Harper Collins, 2004
6
B. Pimlott, Accountability and the Media, Political Quarterly, April 2004.
7
Though unusual in the British context, James’ appointment resembled that of David Gergen, a
communications specialist who worked with American presidents from different parties.
8
I. Gaber, Do the Phillis recommendations represent a new chapter in political communications or is it
business as usual?, Journal of Public Affairs, November 2004
9
G. Philo and M. Berry, Bad News from Israel, Pluto 2004
10
See also F. Beckett and D. Hencke, The Blairs and their Court, David Price 2004.
11
John Lloyd, What the Media are Doing to Our Politics, Constable 2004